Klooster, Casper (2024) Evaluating Citizen Participation Procedures and Outcomes: Evidence from 4 cases of participation in the Municipality of Groningen, The Netherlands. Bachelor thesis.
|
Text
Bachelor-Project-Thesis---Casper-Klooster-s4349466.pdf Download (2MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Citizen participation is an instrument for government actors to involve citizens in decision-making processes. Government actors shape this involvement by selecting and implementing participation procedures. Certain elements of a participation procedure can influence its degree of effectiveness. These elements include; representativeness of the sample of participants, independence of participants, earliness of involvement of participants, influence of participants, transparency of the process, the accessibility of resources to the participants, clarity of the task definition, degree of structure in decision-making, and cost-effectiveness. These procedures shape the following participation outcome categories; construction of citizenship, the practice of participation, responsiveness and accountability of states, and inclusive and cohesive societies. To be able to predict and control participation outcomes increasingly, it is imperative to structurally evaluate citizen participation processes. Despite sporadic efforts, structured evaluations have stagnated in academic research over the last two decades (Falanga & Ferrão, 2021). The scarcity of comprehensive participation evaluations in Groningen indicates the necessity for structured assessments. This research addresses this gap by undertaking a structural evaluation of four participation procedures, aligning with the evaluative frameworks proposed by Rowe & Frewer (2000) and Gaventa & Barrett (2012). Data for this evaluation is gathered through interviews with participation procedure managers and the analysis of participation policy documents. The findings indicate that the municipality of Groningen employs participation procedures yielding negative outcomes. Moreover, the data suggests that the lack of clear guidelines and instruments for systematically assessing inconsistencies in participation procedures could contribute to this situation. Hence, this study recommends further investigation into the potential impact of revising participation guidelines within the Municipality of Groningen for future research endeavors.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Bachelor) |
|---|---|
| Degree programme: | Spatial Planning and Design |
| Supervisor: | Ramezani, S. |
| Date Deposited: | 12 Nov 2024 08:45 |
| Last Modified: | 12 Nov 2024 08:45 |
| URI: | https://frw.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/4795 |
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |